Many modern electronic devices are portable and capable of communicating with each other and various base stations using wireless signaling. Non-limiting examples are 2-way radios, telephones, headsets, bar code scanners, Global Positioning System (GPS) units, Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs), portable computers (PCs), printers, digital cameras, RF identification (RFID) tag readers/writers, chart plotters, and so forth. Sometimes, a number of these various elements may be carried by or associated with a single user or function and it is desired to mutually associate them electronically to form a wireless personal area network (WPAN). Once associated, the cooperating elements can exchange or share data by communicating directly with each other rather than indirectly via a central hub, and in general, ignore other units that may be within communication range but which are not part of the WPAN. It is known in the prior art to form such WPANs, but the association of the various elements into the WPAN had to be carried out manually. This is done, for example, by entering into each unit the identity of the other elements of the WPAN. Another way is to use a local sub-master unit as a temporary hub. The identities (IDs) of the units intended to make up the WPAN are manually entered or scanned into the sub-master and then the association information downloaded from the sub-master to each of the WPAN elements. While this approach works it suffers from a number of disadvantages among which are: it is time consuming to manually reconfigure and associate the units for a particular WPAN; the WPAN make-up is not easily changed, that is, it is static rather than dynamic; it is more complex and inflexible than is desired; and it may require that the individual elements of the WPAN consume more power.
Accordingly, it is desirable to provide an improved arrangement for forming and using WPANs, especially to provide an arrangement and method capable of forming and reforming WPAN associations automatically. In addition, it is desirable that the arrangement and method be robust and inexpensive relative to the prior art and, insofar as possible, take advantage of existing technology and devices. Furthermore, other desirable features and characteristics of the present invention will become apparent from the subsequent detailed description and the appended claims, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings and the foregoing technical field and background.